Phish fans ignore request, start lining up for concert tickets

Sep. 9, 2011

Phish fans have been asked not to gather at The Flynn Theatre box office before Saturday morning, when tickets will go on sale for the band’s flood relief benefit concert. Some fans have already ignored that request and have set up lawn chairs in front of the building. / EMILY McMANAMY, Free Press

Written by

Dan D’Ambrosio, Free Press Staff Writer

PC Construction to underwrite Phish concert

PC Construction Co. of South Burlington has announced it plans to underwrite the costs of next Wednesday’s Phish concert to benefit the victims of Tropical Storm Irene. The underwriting costs are expected to be about $100,000, the company said.

“When we heard about the benefit concert, we were inspired by what Phish is doing and wanted to help make it a success,” Peter Bernhardt, president of PC Construction, said in a prepared statement.

PC Construction — formally named Pizzagalli Construction — was founded in Vermont in 1958 and is employee-owned. The company specializes in general construction, construction management and design/build services for public and private clients.

Bernhardt said underwriting the concert was a chance for the company to “step beyond our traditional giving campaign and give back to the community in the aftermath of this unprecedented natural disaster.”

“It just feels like the right thing to do,” Bernhardt said.

— Dan D’Ambrosio, Free Press

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Anthony Gibbons was camping outside Boulder, Colo., after he attended a Phish concert near Denver last weekend, when he and two friends caught wind of the upcoming Phish concert Wednesday at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction to benefit victims of Tropical Storm Irene.

The trio jumped in their car and left Boulder on Wednesday afternoon, pulling into Burlington on Friday morning at about 7 a.m. — having driven some 42 hours straight. Gibbons took both night driving shifts on the way and was looking forward to spending a night when he didn’t have to drive — even if it was on the sidewalk on Burlington’s Main Street.

“That’s it, just stopping for gas and the bathroom to get here and get in line,” Gibbons said Friday evening. “We hit the road hard.”

Gibbons, 24, was fourth in line Friday outside the Flynn Theater, even though Phish fans had been asked not to gather before today, when tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. for the band’s flood-relief concert. Gibbons wasn’t the only fan to ignore the request, as a line stretched from the Flynn around the corner nearly to King Street at about 6 p.m. Friday, with an estimated 200 or more people waiting to buy their tickets.

First in line were Matt Hemingway and Ben Kamins, both 29, both Burlington natives, and friends since middle school, when they discovered Phish’s music.

“The vibe of Phish is its own thing; their musical ability makes them stand out,” said Kamins, a delivery truck driver for Schwan’s.

“With me, I don’t know, their music is like a roller coaster ride,” added Hemingway, a house painter. “I can’t really explain it in words. As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t really fit in any genre.”

Hemingway also was impressed with the band’s willingness to reach out to the state that gave them their beginning, having formed in Burlington in the early 1980s before rising to national and international fame.

“It’s just great to see people who have been part of this community make it, come back and do something good, instead of ‘me, me, me,’” Hemingway said.

Standing, and sitting, last in line as of Friday evening were William Dedrick and Jackson Taymans, both 19, both students at the University of Vermont. Dedrick grew up outside of Albany, N.Y., and Taymans is from North Haven, Conn. Dedrick and Taymans also became Phish-heads in middle school, with Dedrick being introduced to the jam-band sound associated with Phish by his mother, who was a Grateful Dead fan.

“My mom was very big into the Grateful Dead, she listened to a lot of that stuff,” Dedrick said. “I picked up my jam tendencies from my mom, but I love the sound of Phish. They have a modern sound to what they do. They respect their roots and the origin of the genre, but everything they do sounds different.”

Taymans dismissed as irrelevant any attempts to characterize the band’s music, saying there is something far more important going on at their concerts.

“The big thing is you can just tell they love making music,” Taymans said. “You see them on stage, and they love what they’re doing. Because of that they let it all out.”

Taymans already had a ticket to the Vermont show, but he was standing in line anyway to show his “solidarity” with the other Phish fans. He didn’t even have a chair to sit in, just a blanket he intended to curl up on during the night-long vigil.

Hemingway, first in line and with a camp chair to sit in, had an explanation for why someone like Taymans would stand in line even when he didn’t have to. Call it the Phish effect.

“That’s another thing about Phish: Their concerts are the only place in the world where there’s that much positive energy,” Hemingway said. “It’s nice to get a break and go somewhere where people are focused on being positive and having fun.”

After getting his $75 ticket this morning — which was pretty much guaranteed given his position at the head of the line — Hemingway had a simple plan.